Subway

Attached two-bay five-storey over basement former townhouse, built c.1780, having shopfront to front (east) elevation. Now in use as restaurant with apartments to upper floors. Pitched roof with recent flat roof to front portion, hidden behind red brick parapet with cut granite coping and recent metal railings. Red brick walls, laid in Flemish bond. Square-headed window openings having cut granite sills and replacement windows. Square-headed window and door openings to recent shopfront. Situated on west side and centre of Parliament Street.

Parliament Street is the first example of formal axial planning in mid-eighteenth-century Dublin. George Semple designed the rebuilding of Essex Bridge (1753-55) and his plan showed a new wide street linking the bridge to Dublin Castle, this plan for the street was implemented by the Wide Street Commissioners in 1762. Many of the buildings, including this one, were altered and rebuilt in the nineteenth century. It shares a parapet height with its neighbours to the south, lending a sense of continuity to the streetscape. The proportions of its upper floor openings attribute a hierarchy to each floor, creating a pleasantly balanced façade. Historic maps show that the building was formerly numbered 24 Parliament Street. It is described in Thom's Directory of 1862 as in use as a bookmakers.